UK government advises firms to use cloud to reduce carbon emissions

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UK businesses are being told to accelerate cloud adoption in an upscaled effort to tackle climate change, the UK government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has advised.

The recommendation is part of a series of steps that businesses are being told to consider to help curb their carbon emissions by making changes to their technological habits.

This in turn is part of a wider push by the government to encourage businesses to get behind its climate change-tackling net-zero emissions campaign, in which firms across the country are being challenged to halve their carbon footprints by 2030.

Businesses are also being encouraged to join the BEIS-backed UK Business Climate Hub initiative, which challenges its members to become net-zero entities by 2050.

“Net-zero means that you are putting no more carbon into the atmosphere than you are taking out of it,” said the advisory notice. “Through the government’s United Nations-backed commitment process, you’re joining an international community of thousands of like-minded businesses.”

From a technology purchasing perspective, BEIS said one action companies should take is to consider moving more of their on-premise IT infrastructure to the public cloud instead of continuing to house it within their own private datacentres.

“Large cloud providers are generally more energy efficient than traditional enterprise datacentres,” said the advisory note. “That’s thanks to IT operational and equipment efficiency, datacentre infrastructure efficiency and a higher utilisation of renewable energy. So consider moving from on-premise servers to the cloud.”

Andrew Griffith, the government’s business net-zero champion, said the advice issued by BEIS is a positive step that all businesses can take to help curb their carbon emissions.

“From buying energy-efficient equipment to sourcing large cloud providers, these small steps can collectively make a big difference in helping us fight climate change and create a brighter and more sustainable future,” he pointed out.

Source: cloudcomputing-news.net